De Blij's Africa In A Globalizing World

Why does Geography matter more than ever? In Europe, we often hear that: “Americans only care about themselves, and even if some do care about the world, they do not try to understand it” Obviously, this is a caricature of the American society, and surely not always true. I believe that the main idea behind De Blij’s book is the fact that if people, especially the ones at the top of the economic, social and political food chain, knew a little more about global geography, culture and customs of faraway countries, many problems could be avoided. People’s global knowledge is fragmentary, but geography might be the key linking everything together. Many past or present conflicts, tensions or global crisis, result from clear differences, but are
Where the writer supports the best the thesis of his book, is with the idea that globalization is great for most of the countries of the world, at least from an economic standpoint, but as stated:” […] in the less privileged parts of the world, where participation in the process is not easily achieved, globalization is seen by many as a threat, not as an opportunity” (De Blij, 2012), and thus, it is not always the case. This example perfectly depicts how a nation’s geographical location can change the way it sees what the West is doing and how globalization affects that country. Also, understanding that globalization can be a challenge for Africa puts in perspective all the problems that the United States also faces with Islam. De Blij makes a great case, saying that the greatest danger to Africa’s stability is its “Islamic Front”, and as we saw during the last decade, most terrorists and enemies of the West are coming from afar. Then, understanding and being able to predict what is happening in Africa by example, might relate directly to the way the United States deals with Islamic countries all over the world, and could help them develop better internal policies as well as improve the safety on U.S. soil. I understand that as of today, the American government does not see Africa as big of a threat, or at least not as threatening as some of the middle eastern countries. But ideas are spreading extremely fast, and events that were thought impossible, such as the Arab spring, happened and took the world by surprise. Additionally, Africa’s infrastructures will certainly improve to reach a level of organization that could potentially threaten the US security as much as Afghanistan, Syria or Iran do today. We all know that Africa is one of the poorest parts of the